Roundup: Pop Culture & the Arts ... Movies, Documentaries and Museum Exhibits

Credit Crisis Is a Big Draw for Finance Museum

The Museum of American Finance was faced with an awkward situation recently: some of the corporate sponsors of the museum — dedicated to glories of free markets — had, well, failed. Rather than fretting, the museum tapped its own entrepreneurial spirit and mounted an exhibit — “Tracking the Credit Crisis” — that reveals what the museum’s president, Lee Kjelleren, calls the “greed, recklessness and arrogance” of Wall Street. Probably not what Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lyn

Warhol's Iconic Jackson Painting Auctioned

The painting is a chimera of 1980s culture: a portrait of Michael Jackson painted by Andy Warhol to commemorate the Thriller album's record-breaking sales. The painting was auctioned by the Vered Gallery on New York's Long Island this week for an undisclosed amount, although one report said the price was in excess of $1 million (the starting bid was $800,000.) That would be evidence of the art market's collapse, as the average price for a Warhol in recent years has been $17 million, while the mo

Adolf Hitler paintings to go under the hammer in Germany

Three watercolours depicting cottages, mills and churches nestled in rural landscapes will be auctioned on Sept 5, Weidler's auction house in Nuremberg said on Thursday. "They're very neutral paintings," Kerstin Weidler told Reuters. "The white church picture is drawn very well in his style - of course he didn't make it into the Academy of Fine Arts," she added. The three paintings are dated from 1910 and 1911 and originate from Vienna where Hitler s

Nude photo of Jackie Kennedy Onassis found among Andy Warhol's possessions

The photo, which show the former first lady skinny dipping, is signed "For Andy, with enduring affection, Jackie Montauk" - a reference to the artist's beach front estate in Montauk, on Long Island. The revealing photograph was discovered by archivists sifting through 610 cardboard boxes, filing cabinets and a shipping container that belonged to the pop artist. Researchers working for the Andy Warhol Foundation have also found a piece of crusty wedding cake

'Bang Bang Club' Movie Documents Apartheid in S. Africa

The Bang Bang Club is the title of a documentary film currently in production that examines South Africa during the last days of apartheid, and the impact that violence had on four photojournalists covering the conflict. The movie is based on The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War (2000), a book documenting the lives of those four photogs: Ken Oosterbroek, Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva. The book was written by Marinovich and Silva, the two of that group who s

Mom's legacy is world renowned black collection

LOS ANGELES—When the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum of African American History & Culture is finished it will rival New York's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in size and significance. Clayton's son, Avery Clayton, is still cataloging the hundreds of thousands of things his mom collected before she died in 2006 at the age of 83. But he is also getting ready for the museum's first major exhibition. It's a joint project with the Huntington Librar

'Afghan Star': documenting history with a musical beat

Small windows can sometimes open onto the widest vistas. That's the case with "Afghan Star," an informative documentary revealing how decades of war and years of Taliban repression have fallen to the wayside, however briefly, as Kabul's answer to "American Idol" seduces a violence-weary Afghanistan. British filmmaker Havana Marking and her crew keep their focus on the song contest, which is as cheesy and glitzy as any of its Western counterparts. But

Frida Kahlo scholars say discovery of 'astonishing lost archive' is a fake

More than half a century after her death, the Mexican surrealist who had Leon Trotsky and Josephine Baker as lovers and Diego Rivera as her husband, soulmate and tormenter-in-chief, is at the centre of a new controversy. Fittingly for an artist who insisted, "I paint my own reality", the latest row over Frida Kahlo revolves around truth and authenticity. Princeton Architectural Press, which will soon publish a book of Kahlo's oil paintings, diary entries and p

President's House memorial design criticized

As construction of the President's House memorial is poised to begin, sharp criticisms have been leveled at the architectural design, catching officials by surprise and focusing attention on purportedly historically inaccurate elements of the project. The house's dimensions are incorrect, the arc of a bow window is distorted, and the building's now-infamous slave quarters are incorrectly located, the critics assert. Some historians and members of a committee charged wit

Frick Art & Historical Center to Present Entertaining the President: A Household at Work

On July 4, 1902, Henry Clay Frick, one of America's greatest industrialists and art collectors, hosted President Theodore Roosevelt and 20 other gentlemen at a luncheon at Clayton, the Frick family home in Pittsburgh's East End. The president visited Pittsburgh for a day-long celebration that included a parade, a speech in Schenley Park, a lavish dinner, and fireworks in the evening. This exciting day in Pittsburgh history is being commemorated at the Frick Art & Historical Center this summe

Andy Warhol's Portrait of Michael Jackson Fetches $1 Million at Auction

Andy Warhol's portrait of Michael Jackson sold for more than $1 million at an East Hampton, New York, gallery last night, according to Janet Lehrm one of the gallery owners. Pre-sale estimates ranged from one to 10 million US dollars. The painting shows Michael Jackson wearing a red jacket from his Thriller era. The portrait, measuring 30 by 26 inches (76.2 by 66 centimeters), was purchased for US$278,500 in May at the Sotheby's auction house. Janet Lehr

Oliver Stone reveals 'Secret History'

Oliver Stone is making his most ambitious stab at American history yet. The controversial director is creating a 10-part documentary series for Showtime titled"Secret History of America." Narrated by Stone, the series promises to focus on events that"at the time went under-reported, but crucially shaped America's unique and complex history of the last 60 years," according to Showtime. Subjects will include President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, the origins o

'Steeped in History' exhibition at UCLA's Fowler Museum

The delicate, robin's-egg blue porcelain bowl perched on a display stand in the Fowler Museum at UCLA looks like something you might find at a lovely ladies' luncheon filled with silky vichyssoise soup. But this Qingbai bowl from China's Song Dynasty is actually a drinking cup, used in the late 11th century by working class citizens who enjoyed pu-erh, an aged tea pressed into a cake-like brick. The Qingbai vessel is one of dozens of Chinese cups, Japanese tea caddies a

Jefferson's wine bottles or fakes?

Last month, British wine expert Michael Broadbent filed a libel suit in London against Random House over Benjamin Wallace's best-selling book, The Billionaire's Vinegar. Broadbent, the legendary former head of Christie's wine department, alleges that Wallace defamed him in his gripping whodunit about the so-called Thomas Jefferson bottles—a trove of wines initially said to have belonged to the oenophilic Virginian but now almost universally believed to have been fakes. Three of the bottles, all

Hope Diamond celebrates 50th anniversary with new setting design

The Hope Diamond is going bare to celebrate a half-century at the Smithsonian. The mysterious blue gem was donated to the National Museum of Natural History more than 50 years ago and the museum is celebrating by having a new setting designed. Starting in September, the 45.52 carat diamond will be exhibited as a stand-alone gem with no setting... ... "This is a rare and exciting opportunity for people to see the Hope Diamond as it has never been seen b

Strep throat may have killed Mozart

The death of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the age of 35 may have been caused by complications stemming from strep throat, according to a Dutch study published on Monday. Since the composer's death in 1791, there have been various theories about the cause of his untimely end, from intentional poisoning, to rheumatic fever, to trichinosis, a parasitic disease caused by eating raw or undercooked pork. On his death certificate it was officially recorded that the cause of death wa

Neville Chamberlain's pocket diary goes on display in new exhibition

For most people a pocket diary is the place to record the minutiae and mundanity of life. A reminder to collect dry cleaning, perhaps. Or remember someone's birthday. For Neville Chamberlain it was the place to scribble in two words his most important decision: "war declared". The former prime minister's diary goes on display for the first time on Thursday at a new exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the second world war. Outbreak 1939,

Interpol Creates Online Access to Global Stolen Works of Art Database to Reduce Illicit Trade

INTERPOL has established direct online access to authorized users via a secure website to its international database on stolen works as part of its fight against the illicit trade of stolen cultural property. Online access will not be limited to the law enforcement community but will be open to all interested users who first have to apply for access to the database, which features the latest information on some 34,000 works of art stolen worldwide. Interested parties wishing to acc

Matisse as Printmaker will Shed New Light on One of the Greatest Artists of the 20th Century

The Baltimore Museum of Art presents the first comprehensive exhibition on the printmaking of the great French artist Henri Matisse. On view October 25, 2009 – January 3, 2010, Matisse as Printmaker unites the BMA’s extraordinary collection of Matisse prints with a traveling exhibition organized by the American Federation of Arts, a non-profit arts organization, and the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation. The BMA’s exhibition features approximately 170 works of art spanning 50 years of Matisse’s

Film charting life at the Liverpool Daily Post in the 1970s to be screened

A film lifting the lid on life at the Daily Post in the mid-1970s will get its first public screening in decades tonight. Tomorrow’s Merseysiders, which was made about the Post and its sister paper the Liverpool Echo, was re-discovered, stored in old film tins and covered in dust, two years ago. It was transferred onto digital format by the experts at the North West Film Archive, at Manchester Metropolitan University. The footage will be shown as part of a